 All right today we have a fun toolbox episode around quieting your inner critic and many of us maybe really familiar with our inner critic if your growth minded and listening to the show. You've had those moments of self doubt wrestling with your inner critic and oftentimes listening to your inner critic and moving away from the goals in your life. And this comes up again and again in all of our coaching programs that you can have all of the strategies in the world and you might be listening to the show to gain those strategies but if. Your inner critic keeps you from taking action in your life those strategies are for not so today michael's joining johnny and i and we're gonna talk about what this inner critic is why it exists in the first place how it might be leading us astray. And of course there's a lot of information online on different ways to shut it down to feed it battle it we're gonna talk about a different approach to your inner critic that i think is gonna resonate with a lot of you if you find yourself battling it constantly and losing that battle. So Michael as you join us we love bringing in the science and i love to kick this off by just talking a little bit around the evolutionary reason for us even having this inner critic in the first place because many in our audience are frustrated by it how is it helped us how is it protected us as humans yeah that's i can geek out about that so much because when i first learned about this reason it all clicked for me like i'm certainly someone who has been held back by my inner critic. Quite a lot especially in my in my younger years and learning where that heavy and difficult and berating voice was coming from such an eye opener so so here we go the inner critic when i asked participants in coaching groups and unstoppable what their inner critic is telling them it's usually along the lines of you're not good enough. Don't do this you're going to fail give up though that's kind of the theme that they that they find now. Where where would you find this evolutionarily you can go back quite a lot of millions of years and you would still see the inner critic and particularly in cooperative mammalian species. So the best example would be chimps or dogs wolves you see an inner critic and now this is a little bit of a leap here that that we need to make because of course a wolf doesn't have an inner voice that tells them hey you know you're not good enough you're not wearing your fan. You can't do this but a wolf will do the following the moment a wolf will fight with an equal and they aren't strong enough they will submit they will roll on their back and they will literally show with their body language i am giving up i'm not putting up a fight i'm out of this complete submission it's a little bit of a code program that says if you're facing an equal who is stronger give up. And that's what we as humans we're doing now when the inner critic speaks up it's that that piece of software that is still there that makes us roll over and avoid danger. So a wolf or a chimp will give up so they don't get beaten to death by the alpha and it works it's it's evolutionarily adaptive if i don't roll over i will be killed in that fight so those. Wolf's chimps and so on that didn't have that early in a critic they didn't have offspring they were killed in the first fight they got into. And so this carries over to all of us now that survived thanks to our inner critic but it now shows up in a different way so for us like rarely do you see people enough in an argument like roll over on their back and expose their throats and bellies right that that i don't know about los angeles or les vegas but. You know here in europe that happens very rarely but it does happen internally so the moment humans develop this language and their complex way of thinking we started doing something as a species that. Is about as useful as a glass hammer we're trying to solve problems that are in our mind with our mind. Because we've learned that our mind is really powerful right if i realize that i would like to have my living room painted blue my mind goes to work finds the solution gets the paint gets the brushes and start painting problem soft. So now if i have a problem in my mind like i couldn't ask that person out i couldn't ask for a race i couldn't i can't get on that sales call whatever it is. Our mind jumps in and tries to solve that and it doesn't work like the inner critic is so old and so strong it doesn't listen to our prefrontal cortex when our inner critic says hey this is dangerous this project if you start it you're going to embarrass yourself you're going to lose money you're going to get rejected you're gonna be. Look at as a fool. Give up don't put it but fight don't even try what we're doing though is we're trying to out think that system we're trying to out think the inner critic and it just doesn't work. It's i like to end there with my evolutionary like history i'll end with the metaphor of the grandmother who just you know if you had a grandmother like me like i wouldn't leave the house without two jackets and gloves. And you know just be safe the world is dangerous don't do anything like be safe which comes theoretically from a really good place off i just want to protect but it's just too much. And that's what's holding us back all right tons of the breakdown so yes that mechanism is adaptive but only adaptive in mammals that are from herds species. Because it allows them to find a pecking order somewhere so so that they can maintain and stay in that herd and find a way than to be a contributor. To that herd and solidify its place the other parts to this maybe for the the wolves they don't want to be killed. But because we're a little bit more advanced that backing down from those challenges will keep us from failing in front of others which could lead to rejection could lead to being outcast to be on accepted. And so not only are we we're trying not to get killed out here right we're trying to maintain bring in friends contribute be accepted to and be a part of a community and so there's a lot of those things that way on us that will feed that inner critic to tell us to chill out stop pull back don't go for it. Will that inner critic love certainty and a lot of what we're talking about here getting on stage asking someone out asking for the raise well there's a level of uncertainty with how you'll be perceived what the reaction is gonna be are they gonna say yes or no are other people gonna see you fail. So that inner critic loves the certainty and safety of saying don't do that don't go there don't sacrifice yourself don't move towards that fear you could get hurt you might not be good enough you could be a loser so. Of course what we found with many of the clients we work with is this inner critic you may have one clear example of it showing up in your life when you really start to unpack it. You see it in a lot of different areas of your life where you end up playing safe and keep from moving towards your goals keep from reaching those heights and that potential that you feel you have inside of you all because the inner critic loves that certainty loves that safety. What I specifically remember one participant of unstoppable who told me in the very first session he said you know what I have this voice that comes up that says I'm not funny. I'm not good at telling stories he told me that he went when he agreed to social events his inner critic would speak up like an hour or two before the event and he would start canceling it. He wouldn't speak up at work and ask for help because the inner critic might say will say the critic will say hey you're not worthy of help. They will laugh at you you know submit and appease keep your mouth shut now that's not how you you know should be going through life there are better ways of doing that now with this inner critic often times it is relying on a bit of data from a previous experience. So maybe you had one clear moment in your childhood where you did fail spectacularly and people said you're a terrible storyteller or you got really negative feedback getting on stage or your parents said to you hey you can't possibly do that you're not smart enough you're not strong enough. And your inner critic will cling to that certainty of that one data point and say okay we now know not to put ourself in that situation again we don't want to be scolded by mom and dad we don't want to be made fun of on the playground we don't want to be ostracized from the group. So it might not feel like submitting to the herd of chimps who are stronger than you or to the herd of wolves that could beat you into submission. But you are submitting to a past experience that your inner critic is holding on to an overcompensating for so often times when you recognize these moments in your life you can start to then think about some other times like maybe you're holding on to a past experience a little too strongly. And giving that inner critic a little too much sway in your actions in your goals and ambitions. I think there's also something that is that is interesting to to look at when you see how your inner critic acts with that clear and present danger that is out there if you were to do X Y or C. And that is it never gets angry it never tells you to try harder like the inner critic doesn't say hey get back up you know try harder get your shit together tomorrow you know twice the speed why because when when you're in a fight with the alpha male and you're a champ. And you do that you can beat to death so the inner critic is literally don't get angry don't like just a piece just submit just quiet down like everything is a threat go and hide. And of course that go and hide leads to you avoiding what we call danger or those goals and ambitions that you have for yourself. Because there is a level of uncertainty in all of those things that are really meaningful to you getting that promotion getting up on stage finding that partner asking for that raise. There's going to be a level of uncertainty and how the other person's going to interact but that's also the reason that it's a goal and ambition it wouldn't be a goal or ambition if it was something that you could easily achieve. So there's this duality to it where the inner critic comes up but we know we want this one thing we know we want to get ahead in our career we know we want to find that partner. But in that moment where the inner critic expresses that doubt and tells us to quiet down sit down not say anything cancel those plans. It leads to a level of certainty for the inner critic but not a level of happiness for you personally. And that is because evolutionary speaking happiness was never the goal big goals were never the goal like just survive and that's enough. And the reason that it was so important for me to talk about like where the stuff is coming from to begin with is that I see in a lot of like courses and programs when I work with our clients they think they're the only ones they think something is broken. And it's important to realize a you know everyone has an inner critic and they have it for a really good reason and if you if your ancestors didn't have an inner critic they wouldn't be around anymore you wouldn't be around anymore. So really this inner critic as much as a pain in the butt that it is it kept you alive your ancestors your family tree alive until here. It wants you to be safe. It's not an enemy even though it feels like one it's your overprotective grandma that doesn't want you to see you get into the dangerous situation again. I want to make a distinction there as well. AJ was discussing about the duality and he also mentioned about playing it safe. Though we have this internal drive to be safe and to continue on and to find our place within the herd without getting killed. We also have a drive to procreate right to acquire status to acquire wealth that help us within that herd. So we have this internal battle that continually goes on and this is why we end up getting angry at ourselves because we all know the things that motivate us to drive us that that wake us up every morning. The things that we see on social media that were like oh I would love that oh a trip around the world I want that oh the go to Europe and explore oh I want that to come back home to my Tesla and mansion. Well yeah I want that but yet I have to do all these things that push me outside my comfort zone in order to begin to climb to the top in order to get those things. And along the way there is plenty crevices and threats that are on that mountain that are going to take me out. So I need to figure out a way to not only play it safe but inch my way towards those goals. Now that mindset right there is not going to get you anywhere fast. And it is and when you look at it think about the people who have gotten those things where we would consider self made they had figured out a way to be bold and brave and break the chains of that inner critic and that's a fight that every one of them have won at certain times of battle but will continue to face for every rung of the ladder that they want to climb. We've had some incredible amazing people on this show and every one of them have had that discussion with us. Sometimes after we hit the end after we hit stop I can't tell you how many times and of course if you follow the show for a while you recognize that a lot of the guests we have don't do a lot of podcasts they haven't been on a lot of shows. And when Johnny and I hit stop there's this sigh of relief and sometimes they'll outwardly express my inner critic was telling me I'm going to be a terrible guest on this show I'm not going to be helpful to your audience. I'm surprised at how great that interview was because my inner critic told me to cancel. And it's interesting because we get to experience this after we hit the stop button but for many in our audience who are listening to these great guests. You think you build up this belief in your mind that they don't have this inner critic that they've somehow overcome it once and it's not an ongoing discussion. They've figured out how to defeat it how to silence it how to submit it. And of course one of my favorites was interviewing David Goggins. Now of course David Goggins you may have caught the clips on YouTube went wildly viral over his argumentative in your face brashness right. Telling you to call your inner critic a bunch of names and battle it into submission and it was funny when we were bringing him up to the studio. He was deadly silent in that elevator ride up to the studio and then he himself had to flip the switch to become Goggins. In order to defeat that inner critic to have a great interview. So he was having the battle with the inner critic before our eyes in that elevator ride. And this is a guy who when you see his clips online you think oh he's defeated him because he's gotten louder brasher. He's made that inner critic submit like the wolf like the alpha chimp. I want to add to that story as well because he even admitted it to us now when we interviewed David. At the time he was still on the rise up. Not many people knew who he was. He had been on Rogan once and there was a lot of interest in David but he was just finishing his book and he knew that the next chapter and the next challenge in his life was to do all the social media to promote that book. And AJ it was either you or me we asked him right there in that moment what's the next mountain or challenge that you have that you are nervous about considering everything you did and we're waiting for some crazy physical challenge that he was about to present. He's like actually guys it's doing what I'm doing right here right now in this room with you guys. And it just goes to show you that no matter who you are what you do what you've accomplished if you are moving forward and you are looking to acquire new heights and experiences in your life you will have to deal with the inner critic and you will either learn to turn towards growth or you will go to your default mode which is programmed into you as Michael said for millions of years and turn away. That's the programming that you have to be. Now we're going to get into that and we're going to tell you guys how that is done but I also want to share some stories from our clients who have been through these efforts to learn how to turn towards it and in our own challenges of where we've had to learn to turn towards it and I always say that as an entrepreneur this line of work is not for the faint of heart because you're constantly having to learn to do new things and because of that your inner critic has free reign to mess with you all the time in fact I deal with it like anybody else but because of the work that we do here because of what I've learned from Michael and all of the guests that we've had in the 15 years of doing this job I've learned when I am feeling those emotions in a heightened emotional state that growth is on the other side of that and the turn towards that so the writing that I do there was a time where I was definitely afraid of having to push publish on something that I had written for this company now it is something that I do regular and weekly and it's still a challenge sometimes I'm staring at a blank page like what am I going to write about today but again in those moments and I might even get angry but the growth is to start clucking away on the keyboard and and to make sure that something goes out and and for all of us we find these moments every day and and Michael certainly you have faced more adversity than a lot of folks and had to learn how to turn towards that growth oh yeah my inner critic was like rampant I was I feel like my entire teenage life being bullied a lot in school moving schools moving to a new area being the new kid in school with a disability I felt constantly made fun of and and bullied and I feel like my entire teenage years felt like Michael never opened his mouth because the inner critic was had learned from that past experience if you say something the classroom will laugh so don't say anything anymore but I will say for myself that I've come to a place where I seem to have a pretty good relationship with my inner critic we had Kristen Neff on the show a few months ago like one of the lead researchers in this field and before she was on the show I had done a couple of days training with her and she did this exercise where she said okay you know we're gonna tap into your inner critic you think of a situation that brings brings up something for you and then just write down what the inner critic is saying and at the end of the exercise I was thinking I'm not I don't think I'm doing this right and I raised my hand I said excuse me Kristen I I think I'm doing this wrong I find my inner critic is like dude you're trying it's okay and I was like am I doing this wrong is that maybe you've done enough work on yourself that your inner critic that you've your inner critic is still the same but the relationship has has changed to it Johnny you said you said something earlier when you're talking about like publishing articles on the website about having that fear response when your finger was hovering over the publish button and how that slowly got less and less as you did more and more of this and that is part of the solution of dealing with the inner critic because remember what the inner critic is doing it knows there is a clear and present danger from past experience and it wants to protect you so it stands between you and that goal it's in the middle and it says no no no no no this is danger now what everyone this is because this is how we've been culturally conditioned what we're trying to do is we're going to argue with the inner critic we're going to beat our way through it that thing it's going to beat you a chest like 10 times out of 10 like you're not winning against your inner critic but what we could do is to go around the inner critic go to that dangerous thing to that goal to that ambition and try it out and what happens either you succeed or you learn or you realize you know what I actually failed but it's not half as bad as I thought it would be and your inner critic it's a tiny little bit smaller because it's energy efficient if there's not a big danger I don't have to speak up that loudly so you do that again and again and again you go where the you go where the fear lies you know you go where the danger is and you show your inner critic hey you know actually this is not as bad as you thought and the inner critic will start preserving energy like okay then I don't have to speak up I can take a nap this is when you know the inner critic kind of starts shutting up and goes and has a drink and a way in which we do that in unstoppable for example where the participants often struggle with social anxiety with the fear of getting rejected embarrassing themselves when they talk to strangers I have them go out into a public place and have them do a little bit silly exercises like they might go out there and lie down on the sidewalk or lie down in a mall and their inner critic in week one is on fire like it's doing a handstand on the mental catastrophe curve and they're like I could never do that and then they tell me how they've been walking around that mall for like three hours and then they realize this is not getting better I have to like do this and the next week they come back to our Q&A session and they share with me and with the others and say the first time this was so scary it took me like an hour or two before I dared do it but the fifth time I did it I didn't even shrug anymore like I didn't even break a sweat it was so easy what's the next challenge because this one isn't triggering my buttons anymore and that is the way to deal with the inner critic you go around it you show it hey this dangerous thing this dream that I have it's not scary at all let me show you that's why we're calling this quieting the inner critic because in our experience the more you listen to the inner critic and give up submit roll over the louder it gets it becomes more confident it feels more comfortable expressing itself in various areas of your life oh I kept you safe from public speaking now I'm going to keep you safe from saying anything out of turn in your first date oh I kept you safe from your first date now we're not going to go to that social event we're going to put on Netflix so your inner critic starts to make itself really comfortable in your life and guide a lot of your decisions and actions in ways that keep you away from those goals and ambitions but the more you actually go around the inner critic the quieter that inner critic becomes in other areas of your life so even if you're not feeling socially anxious but you're stepping outside of your comfort zone in a moment where that inner critic's going to say hey that's unsafe people are going to look at you you're going to find that in other areas then when that inner critic might feel like speaking up it's just going to be a little bit quieter it's turning the volume down on that inner critic in other areas of your life and that's why so many of the graduates are unstoppable they then relish those moments that they hear their inner critic again because they know just the other side of it is that goal and ambition and that purpose that they have been holding themselves back from in their lives and they start to move towards the inner critic like how else can I challenge myself where else can I get this inner critic to speak up and that's one of my favorite takeaways from the unstoppable program when we talk and interact with graduates months even years later and they're like you know I never realized that my inner critic was keeping me from writing that book or starting that side hustle business or moving to a new town or backpacking alone across Europe I thought my problem was I didn't know how to talk to people I didn't realize that my problem was my inner critic was guiding my actions in all these areas of my life that are really fulfilling and a ton of fun for me now so I booked that trip I stamped my passport I launched that book I created the website on the weekend and now I have an Etsy and now I have an e-com store and an Amazon business and they found us because well they had a fear of public speaking or well they weren't sure how they were going to communicate on that first date and they wanted to feel more confident in those areas yeah that's why I love the program because when you sit and reflect about what is it that you would like to do if you had a million dollars right if you played that game and of course everyone's like wow I'd be at the beach I'd be partying I'd be getting there like okay after the the celebration they were going to get in and they're like oh well then they start to think about what their what their core values are and the things that they would like to be doing they get into a place of passions and they want to engage with those passions and and then when you get to that point where you're discussing the passions that you have and why you would be engaging in them then the question is well then why aren't you doing them then you come up with your laundry list of all the reasons why you can't be engaging in those passions that none that laundry list is what your inner critic had given you in order to keep you from engaging in your passions if your inner critic wasn't there you wouldn't have that laundry list and you would be engaging in that that is exactly why I've gotten a self-development it was why I was like well why can't we just start a business here's a laundry list well yeah I get it there's a laundry list but this is just go it's the reason that I had continued playing and music this whole time from an early age throughout my whole life because it was the thing that I loved to be doing I have plenty of reasons why I shouldn't be doing that I could come up with a laundry list as big as anybody else's but I realize that laundry list is useless it's keeping me from things that enhance life for me so when you start to think about what are those things that you want to be engaging in at the other side of that is what is going to enhance life it's going to make you enjoy waking up early every day to get after it when you have at the end of your day you're excited to get the bed early because you can't wait to do it again but if you're going to bed and you're staring at the ceiling and you're freaking out that's because your inner critic is having its way with you if you learned to quiet it you would be more productive you would be living a more fulfilling life you would be engaging in things that make life worth wild and if you're not well you're inner critic up until this point right here and that we're speaking to you right now has won the battle but has not won the war there's this little anecdote when I speak to young men who are about late 20s and this happens a lot and it just seems to be more and more and I think COVID has brought a lot of this out of people because a lot of folks had just sat and waited it out but they're not content they're in discontent and they're not fulfilled and they're wondering what's going on and for a lot of these people they have great jobs they're in great relationships but they feel as if something was amiss and then we start discussing things like how old Magellan was when he set sail I was 25 years old and I always ask everybody how old was Magellan when he went and set sail around the world and all his adventures they're like I don't know probably like 50 no and in fact people who weren't living very well at 50 during those times but because he dove into his passions and was bold and brave enough to know what he wanted to do and went after it and that is why he set sail at that age because of the glory that was on the other side of that and for all of the young people listening to his show if you're staring at the ceiling and your mind is racing it is because the things that mean the most to you have been left to the side while you pursue what you think is the right answer or what you felt was the safe thing to do because your inner critic up until this point has been winning there's something that's happening behind the lines here Johnny that I think you painted a really good picture the system works like this if there is a goal or an ambition that you have in your life the bigger it is I can't pronounce his name in English Magellan Magellan Magellan that sounds like a tire like I don't know like what what big ambition he had when he got on the boat maybe he just wanted to pick up chicks I don't know anyway okay I'm getting myself into trouble here anyway so I don't know how much of a goal or an ambition if he said like sail saying I'm gonna find the new world but the bigger the goal that you put up for yourself the louder your inner critic is going to be so in at step number one that means the fact that your inner critic speaks up is a good sign because you're not in your comfort zone you're chasing something you're going after your values and your goals so if your inner critic speaks up congratulations you're doing it right that that is the first thing the other thing you should notice is that when you go after that thing like like you just said AJ the moment you go after that thing even though your inner critic speaks up it's going to fight harder it's going to get louder but notice also that the moment you decide to postpone that goal to give up on it your inner critic goes away it's silent it's done its job so what our brain learns is that oh if that voice is really hurtful to me all I have to do is give up on my dreams and it's going to go away and it's comfortable so notice that it's very this is why we're giving up to the inner critic so often because it makes life better in the very short term and our brain goes oh that worked I'm gonna do that again next time that's how that system works one thing that I feel a lot of members of our audience do and I know I did this was try to out lawyer and out argue their inner critic and bring logic in and be forceful and rebut what their inner critic is saying and create this in their mind hopefully feedback loop where they can just keep battling and negotiating with this inner critic until finally the inner critic submits and I think that may work for a handful of people but for a lot of people that's not working that's probably why you're here listening to the show so I'd love to share sort of what we can use science for and give us our audience some new tools to work with this inner critic recognize it's going to be there we understand why evolutionarily speaking it is there and how it is keeping us safe we also realize it's an impediment to our goals and dreams and our ambitions and right now battling it arguing it trying to out logic it and get in that discussion isn't really working so what can we be doing Michael to give our audience some more tools to navigate this inner critic so they can reach those goals understanding that it's never going to go away we touched upon the first part of this earlier when we said we have to go around the inner critic towards that danger slash goal that we have now that is easier said than done because going around during a critic you're going to get a lot of stuff thrown your way but there's another path to take and this was first brought into the western world by a Chris Neff of whom we talked about a little bit earlier who did a lot of research around self-compassion now self-compassion sounds at first glance a little bit like woo-woo and fluffy but it's actually a super powerful concept so we need to dig a little bit into how to apply self-compassion so that it becomes what many psychologists call fierce self-compassion fierce self-compassion is for example what before fierce compassion is what the firefighter has that runs into the house to save the kids and the dog right that's not like woo-woo fluffy soft I'm gonna get a cup of cocoa that is like no you know fierce compassion I'm gonna risk my life to save these people and that's the kind of self-compassion we were talking about here and Chris Neff has on her on her website she lists like close to 3,000 studies that look at the effects of self-compassion and that's a real lot because this stuff only really made it into the western world and like the early 2000s and what they what they found before we talk about how to apply it is that self-compassion added to any kind of behavior change is always giving it a boost to be a little bit more precise here if for example you try to stop smoking and you try the gold standard you'll still do better if you try the gold standard plus a little bit of self-compassion if you're working on weight management study around that if you use the gold standard for weight management you're gonna do good but if you use self-compassion on top of that you're going to do a lot better like there's so many studies out there that show that self-compassion added to any behavior change is just going to outperform the gold standard so what is self-compassion to not get too scientific about it self-compassion means talking to yourself as you would to your best friend it's not the beating up it's not hey buddy give up just chill on the couch forget about the goal you're not worthy you're too stupid you're a loser you couldn't pull that off anyway like we wouldn't talk to our best friends like that right we would say hey how can we do this how can we make this easy what's the first step what what what needs to happen right now I'm with you all the way this is how we would talk to our best buddy if they were confronted with the same problem and that is the idea of self-compassion of being our own best friend in pursuing that so as you go around that inner critic you're doing it with your best buddy with your wingman on on the side because at the end at the end of it all like for all your life and for the rest of your life there was exactly one person that knows everything you know that has been with with you all the way experienced everything has all your bad memories and that's the person you look at when you look in the mirror in the morning and you better make sure that you have a really good relationship with that person and and when you develop that relationship that is what's called self-compassion I think with the most important word that you said there is that it needs to be developed so many people are looking for the the psychological switch that they can flip so they can just kill the inner critic and do the things that they want to do and of course we always hear all that the self-compassion thing it didn't work for me I tried to be friends with myself and it was still there no one said it was going to end we said it was a was a going to be a continuous battle as long as you continue to strive for more and more greatness in your life and outside of your comfort zone and that it needs to be developed think about up until this point every time that you had turned away from growth and that you backed down due to your inner critic you have given it more strength and we are looking to take that strength back and you have to look at it as a locomotive that is barreling down the track and this thing is trucking by and not only is it just not going to you're going to flip a switch and it's going to change directions the first thing that we have to do is slow it down and then once we've slowed it down getting it to move in the right direction that is a process that you have to devote yourself to commit to while this happens but here's the best part of it once the process begins each day gets better and better as long as you stay on that path and committed to that practice it gets easier and easier and then slowly it's not an inner critic anymore because the way you are treating it as a best friend it is treating you as a best friend and I think it's important to recognize here that there's action tied to it so part of it is a recognition that failure is a part of the process not every goal is attainable in your first try in fact if it was it's probably not a good goal for you you probably want to stretch yourself a little bit further so I think a lot of times this perfectionism comes up right I feel like the inner critic and perfectionism is doing this dance where it's like well if I can't get it right the first time I'm not going to do it at all well you're going to fail well then I'm not going to do it because it's not going to be perfect now just telling yourself hey you did a great job hey better luck next time but not taking that action the next time is not really your best friend right it's letting you off the hook so I think and we had Kristin on the show previously and self-compassion came up in the discussion it came up in the x-factor accelerator and unstoppable sessions where this idea of self-compassion is often tied to just okay well I need to have my inner dialogue be a little bit more positive and a little bit more uplifting and I just got to cheer myself up yeah you can cheer yourself up while you're playing the ps5 and while you're throwing on another Netflix show but that's not really self-compassion that's just you allowing your inner dialogue to relax a bit after that inner critic came up self-compassion is an outward behavior my grandma called that a pity party exactly self-compassion is not a pity party it's not letting yourself off the hook and feeling pitiful about your previous result or that imperfection that you had it's still an outward movement of action towards the goal it's a recognition and a celebration that you took the step you fell down your inner critic was there present but you took the step and what can we do tomorrow to get you back to the gym to get you running a little bit longer to get you on stage a little bit longer to get you feeling a little bit more discomfort at the next social gathering not to say that we need to change the goal entirely or we need to quit and I think that's where when we hear self-compassion it feels a little ooey-gooey it feels a little woo-woo if you don't tie it to an outward behavior of action in that direction the next time this is a very common question that comes up like if I become my own best friend won't I just slack I would argue like maybe you need better friends if that's how your friends treat you and they like sit you down on the couch turn on Netflix and feed you ice cream but but in reality like think about the perfect friend you would want to have in your life what would that person say to you as you struggle going to the gym that person wouldn't take out the whip and go like hey you know what move that person might be like hey you know what I know it's hard this sucks it sucked for me too the first six months are hard how about we start with 45 minutes and have an ice cream at the end or something like that I say yeah 45 minutes I can do the classic metaphor for that is that if you imagine you're in elementary school and you have two teachers and one teacher every time you fail or you fall short you get yelled at and puts you in the corner shames you makes you feel bad about yourself where you have the other teacher who says hey I know this is hard you failed just now can we try again tomorrow what could we do differently what do you think right which teacher do you think you would have more success with the compassionate one not the one with a stick right and and so many people I find especially in the super productive hustle society they feel like they need to go through their entire life with a stick behind their back so that they can achieve things what kind of freaking life is that when you turn 120 years old and you didn't live a single day in your life without you know beating yourself up yelling at yourself and using the stick when self-compassion works just as well if not better without the stick so so let's do that let's act on that it's also not the opposite of just quitting entirely so that that's the other side of the coin and and we see this with weight loss we see this with trying to build new habits of like oh I was I was on a chain I was 19 days in a row of eating good and then I had that cheeseburger or then I slept in or then I had that sip of alcohol and it just wipes away the previous 18 days and you're just like I give up self-compassion comes in and says okay well what can we do tomorrow to get back on track maybe it's have the salad for lunch maybe it's remove the alcohol from the house maybe it's put yourself on stage in a different way by speaking up in a zoom meeting right so it's really important to recognize that when we're talking about self-compassion and we did a presentation on this in another group it's not about just sitting there and having this internal rose colored glasses dialogue with yourself you're so great you're smart enough you're sharp enough you can do it but it's then tied to well what are you doing now that you've felt that bit of compassion for yourself what is that next step you're going to take that's going to get you moving back towards that goal understanding that over time the more you're giving yourself these opportunities the more that inner critic is going to conserve its own energy and say I don't need to speak up as much I don't need to rush to judge I don't need to shout at Michael, AJ, Johnny to stay safe I know that Michael, AJ and Johnny are going to be safe because the last time I spoke up and they did that thing nothing happened they had a great podcast they had an awesome interview they'd have a great speech on stage so I can take today off I don't need to be so loud today with my critique of who they are and why those goals aren't achievable and that's the beauty of it and when you recognize it can be developed like a muscle well there are some days I'm not going to hit my PR in the gym and there are other days I'm going to surprise myself and I'm going to push even further than I thought I could so the development of it is so key I feel like we need to address at this point because this is still going through the head of many a listener right now okay I just need to flip the self-compassion switch and then everything is going to be easy it's not a hack self-compassion is not a three-second hack three self-compassion is a tool that for the rest of your life you develop and it makes yes it makes things a little bit easier because you have your best friend you are your own best friend next to you as you go through the difficult process but you it is more than anything it is a tool that gives you advice again a really great question I learned from a friend to ask in difficult situations is given that it's difficult right now and given what's happening right now what would be helpful and just answering questions like these as if you were counseling your best friend we'll tell you what the next step is it might be like hey get all the boost out of the house it might be hey you know what I've worked so hard for an entire month I deserve a burger the answer will come and it's going to come from the right place and not the inner critic that just wants you to stop I love chatting with the folks who are going through unstoppable and an X factor because they're going through that process and they're learning the triggers and mechanisms to their own psychology so that they can understand when they are in a heightened emotional state due to being outside their comfort zone and pursuing what it is they want to engage him it's usually a passion right it's usually something that they've always wanted to do and when they understand those triggers and mechanisms they now understand that there's a choice to be made in that moment turn away from growth or turn towards growth now like anything at the beginning of the program when I talk with everybody they're a bit frustrated they're going through the motions they're learning all this stuff it's like there's a lot of information some would say it's like drinking out of a fire hose but they realize they're in this process and they're like I'm at the beginning of it it's a bit scary I'm going through the homework and I'm starting to get a handle of it two three weeks later it's like talking to a completely different person they're standing up taller they're more excited about what they have going on and all of a sudden when we're doing at the beginning of every session we discuss the wins for the week well those people are always then the first ones to go because they're excited about all this new stuff that they're taking on that they've always wanted to and I usually don't see them for a couple weeks after that because a trip is usually the first thing on the bucket list that they're going to check out it's a trip or it's a cruise and then when they get back it's I'm working on this new business I recently reached out to some family members who I haven't talked to in a long time that I'm looking to rebuild this relationship with I mean the excitement is just pouring out of the screen and of course it affects and infects everybody else on that call to where they are getting fired up and I love that and my favorite is just I always count the weeks from when they start until I see that moment and it's always right on cue and let's be honest what we're talking about here can be really hard on your own it can be really hard to develop the self-compassion on your own when you're feeling up against it when you're feeling rocked from that inner critic and that's why the group support and the coaching comes in to add a new perspective so you're not battling it alone you're not frustrated in those moments where you can't find the self-compassion you can actually draw that self-compassion from seeing others participate in these difficult things and others wrestle with their inner critic and come out the other side oftentimes when we think about these things that are really impactful in our life it can feel even tougher when you're backs against the wall when you don't have anyone else in your life that's growth-minded or is working through the same inner critic frustration or is feeling that perfectionism or is feeling that imposter syndrome but being surrounded in a group full of people who are facing the same challenges whose inner critic is saying the same things to them and seeing them grow as Johnny's saying in that session each week and seeing them stand a little bit taller well that can give you that extra ounce of energy you need to move towards that goal to move around the inner critic and that's the beauty of the group coaching and that's the amazing part of Unstoppable is tapping into this community of people working on the exact same things this inner dialogue this inner dialogue with this critic that in the past has kept you from those goals that are so important to you the other powerful piece to that as well is being able to recognize whether or not there are flawed circular thinking that is going on that is keeping you from progressing and that's quite difficult because this is from the patterns that have set in you're basically bullshitting yourself and accepting some of this circular thinking and it will keep you as if you're not making that progress having other people in that group coaching who are able to recognize those patterns because they have unlocked those patterns in themselves they have found the clasp that holds that circular thinking together and they have been able to break it and so after 15 years I mean that's one of the jobs that we have at ASC is being able to recognize those patterns but what's fun about this is when you go through that process then you are able to begin to see these patterns and again this contributes to what we call seeing the matrix so having run unstoppable and the previous programs that were all around confidence building very often participants are so kind and they sent in written testimonials or they record a video and one of the testimonials that really stood out for me was this amazing lady that put so much work into the program and when she recorded it was just a small little audio message but the gist of it was she said you know Michael I joined your program because I wanted to get confident and I certainly did that but what the program really allowed me to do myself is to for the first time in my life love myself and that still gives me goose bumps thinking about that how many people are out there that are their own worst enemy and they don't have a kind word for themselves when all the power lies in self-compassion and being your best friend and supporting yourself and not just constantly beat yourself up so let's bring more of that into the world and get people closer to their goals and their ambitions and quite in that dang inner critic and then be done with it